Four Subfields Of Anthropology Analysis

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Anthropology 215
Mid-Term
Bill Cox
1/31/2016
The four subfields of anthropology
Within the field of anthropology, there are four distinct subfields into which the field is divided. The four subfields, Linguistic anthropology, Cultural anthropology, Archaeology, and Biological (Physical) anthropology focus on specific aspects of Humans from different perspectives, with the overall goal of describing the overall essence of what a Human Being is. The overall goal of the four fields is to answer this question through collecting evidence, and placing the evidence into context in order to gain a holistic view of the human species. The field of archaeology focuses on things which humans have created or impacted, and left behind. Though the field …show more content…

Through documenting and comparing the various aspects of human cultures Cultural anthropology aims to describe how Humans as a species form and structure cultures, as well as how specific human cultures function. By creating ethnographies of human cultures, Cultural anthropologists map out the specific facets of Human cultures, and utilize this analysis to compare and contrast these cultures against ethnographies compiled of other cultures in order to map out how H. sapiens as a species forms cultural groups. An example of this would be an ethnography prepared for the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, intended to document and preserve the various remaining aspects of the Coast Salish culture such as language, cooking practices, ritualistic dances, and …show more content…

Because the Human genome has been sequenced, as well as the genome of several other Hominin and Great Ape relatives, it has become possible to map out where populations and species originated, and how they may be related to each other. An example of the utilization of genetics to answer an anthropological question is in the case of the disputed Kennewick Man, which involved a skeleton which was revealed when a portion of the river bank along the Columbia river eroded. Because of the time period in which the remains were discovered, the disputed cultural and ethnic origins of the male, and the fact that the remains were uncovered on federal land the skeleton remained in a sort of legal limbo between the Federal Government and the native tribes of the region. Eventually, as genetic sequencing has become more accurate and more capable, the DNA of the Kennewick man has been extracted, sequenced, and determined Kennewick Man to be an ancestral member of a Native American population, as opposed to a member of a separate migratory population from

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